


Rerouting

by An_Ode



Series: The Mandalorian Taxi Service [3]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Developing Relationship, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Girls kick ass too, Hot for teacher?, I had to include it, I'm so sorry, No baby yoda YET, Pre-Series, Protective!Mando, Slow Burn, making shit up about space, no beta we die like men, transportation woes, why am i here, y'all thats like top 10 fave tags
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-26
Updated: 2020-04-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:27:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23861572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/An_Ode/pseuds/An_Ode
Summary: “Can you legally hitch a ride on a trade ship?”"Why?” The modulated voice was familiar. Six months with a direct comm did that to people.“Because my sky taxi isn’t the most reliable."-OR-The Mandalorian is a better teacher than he's given credit for.
Relationships: The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Original Female Character(s), The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/Reader, The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)/You
Series: The Mandalorian Taxi Service [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1711711
Comments: 43
Kudos: 196





	Rerouting

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning: unwanted advances.

You don’t want to call him. You really don’t. Its been a good run, you were slowly but surely figuring out inter-planetary travel, but this planet was small, it didn’t have much in the way of a spaceport. The idea of asking the random traders milling around for passage to the mid-rim made a whimper raise in your throat. What was the standard price of travel? Could you legally get a ride on a trade ship? How safe was it?

All questions your pride ensured would never be ask.

At least this planet was absolutely breath taking. The rolling hills were a shade of emerald green so pure you’d never seen their equal. Sparklingly clear water revealed the technicolor stones that lined the winding riverbed. There was a peacefulness here that tempted you into staying. But you knew you had to move on. You came, you saw, you conquered. Not that helping a young widow see her own strength and encouraging her to keep her son and raise him herself could be described as “conquering.”

You weren’t entirely sure who the Chosen was on this one – the son or the mother. It was an imprecise thing, more of an art than a science. The unerring urge dragging you across the universe and back again in search of quieting the yawning chasm in your chest.

“You stayin’ or leavin’?” It amused you, people programming droids to reflect the cultural normative around them.

“That is the question my good fellow,” you huff out, eyes going back to the comm in your hands. Giving into cowardice, you press the button. You wait.

It’s a surprise, how quickly he gets there. You feel compelled to inform him.

“Twelve hours,” you call out, bag over your shoulder as you approach the Razor Crest. “Your new record.”

“I was nearby.”

Spinning around to take in the brilliant shades paining the planet one last time, the sense of peace you had been enjoying begins to dim. Experience says the yawning chasm will return in a few hours. One job done, another yet begun.

Before you make it to the lowered ramp, you see the crew of that trade ship you’d been eyeing for three days stroll past. You spin, watching them laughing loudly and carrying on. They were docked a few spaces over, the little port at capacity with four ships landed. Brows pull together, lips pursed in consideration.

“You planning on making me wait twelve hours for you now?” The modulated voice was familiar and so was his wry sense of humor. Six months with a direct comm did that to people.

“Can you legally hitch a ride on a trade ship?”

There’s a pause and then, “why?”

“Because my sky taxi isn’t the most reliable,” you say absentmindedly. The ridiculousness of asking the two crewmen, now leaning against the wall to your right, whether they would’ve taken you on as a passenger running circles in you head.

“I just set a new record,” an undercurrent of defensiveness has you turning to face him, body still halfway up the ramp.

“I–” you stumble over the admission of weakness, embarrassment clawing at your insides. “ _Theoretically,_ ” you emphasize like a fucking lurdo, “how would one go about booking passage on an… alternative vessel?”

You aren’t looking him in the t-visor, but you feel it burning into you anyway. You’ve never asked him a question like this. Sure, the logistics of bounty hunting, the politics of the Guild he had just officially joined, the annoyances of ship maintenance, but never how to do something as basic as this. You’d never asked him for advice.

“Not all trading vessels will allow unauthorized commuters.” He begins, the monotone making the tension in your shoulders release. “It depends on the captain and the cargo,” he goes on, taking three steps to stand shoulder to shoulder with you, helmet pointed at the crewmen to your right.

“So it’s a shot in the dark.”

“Not always,” he goes on, “some companies are known to turn a blind eye on their captain’s side businesses.”

“What about this ship… for example?” Head tilt, he’s on to you.

“Ohnaka Transport Solutions is a known front for a smuggling ring,” he huffs, and your eyes widen just a touch. “Avoid them.”

He’s walking back up the ramp and you scamper behind him; thankful you didn’t try and book passage on a smuggler’s ship. This is why you needed a 101 class about hitchhiking around the galaxy, because there were smugglers in plain sight that you still couldn’t see.

Climbing the ladder, he goes on, gives you names of transport companies you’d be safer hitching a ride on, warning signs to watch out for and the common prices of travel to and from major starports.

“What are you… what is that?” You look up from the bent over position you’re sitting in to see his chair facing you fully.

“Taking notes?” It comes out as a question, eyes crinkled in confusion at his confusion.

“On flimsy?” Ah, that made more sense.

“Yes, I remember things more clearly if I write it down on flimsy instead of using a data pad.”

“Can I see it?” The question almost startles you. The little green book was only a few inches longer than your hand, thick with used pages. No one had ever handled it but you in the eight years you’ve been carting it from planet to planet.

“I… uh,” looking down at it and then up at him, you nod. “Sure,” extending it towards him, a thought strikes you. “Don’t make fun of my handwriting.” He just huffs in response, the modulator distorting the sound.

Gloved hands run over the cover slowly before flipping it around and between them. He cracks it open, flimsy fluttering as he flicks through page after page of stray thoughts, haphazard questions, vital notes, and the occasion shitty diagram. The green cover is covered in cracks that shine golden in the light, pages a warm cream. It was your sisters once upon a time.

“What is this supposed to be?” Tilting the book you see a poorly sketched plant with medicinal properties you always confuse with its poisonous cousin.

“Hey! I said no mockery!”

“Of your handwriting, not your terrible art skills,” he claps back without hesitation and you gape like a fish.

“Handwriting indicates a general umbrella of all things made by hand.”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“Fine!” You slouch back in your chair in defeat. “Artistry, in all its forms, is my greatest weakness.”

“I thought trying to get a ride was your greatest weakness.”

“You’re on a kriffing roll today, aren’t you?” And then he’s laughing, shoulders shaking, hands clutching around your book on instinct, full bodily laughing. You stare, eyes hooded, a smile threatening to tear across your face. The modulator filters the sound to a garbled tangle of noise. It feels right somehow.

“In the nearly full year I’ve known you, you’ve never been this mean.” You gripe, noting how his head falls back slightly as the onslaught continues.

Kriff, and it had been a year hadn’t it? You’d only called him on the comm as a last resort, but that was still more often than you would like. Maths to the problem, you’d only spent a handful of days with the Mandalorian in total, maybe a week if you finagled some numbers.

“Are you on a tight schedule?” he asks suddenly.

“No,” you reply, and then with clear suspicion, “why?”

He doesn’t answer, just spins in his fancy captain’s chair, pressing some buttons that make these gratifying little beeping sounds.

“Is this when you kill me and toss my body out the airlock?”

“That’s next month.” Man was just rolling with the deadpan today, wasn’t he?

He still has the book, content as you please to flip through it in silence while you fidget in the co-pilots chair. Eyes bounce all over the cockpit in an effort to fight the near fatal urge to stare a hole through his helmet encased head.

“What is a Kaadu, and why are you so interested in its balance and agility?”

“I’d draw a picture to explain it, but we both know you’d laugh me out the airlock.”

“Like I said, next month.”

You’re dying inside, flames licking your face, hands twitchy. No one had ever been interested in your questions before, the musings in your book bringing no small amount of amusement to your Mandalorian companion. It was like looking inside your head, pulling out parts no one was allowed to see. You hated the feeling it brought up from deep in your chest.

As a Sage, you must always be wise, collected, objective, and invisible. There was very little time for you to be present as your own being. Your very existence was about others, their Journey always the focus. _To know but never be known, to see but never be seen,_ she used to say, the words coming back vividly. It hadn’t bothered you much back then, you’re not sure why it does now.

“Are Revwiens plants or beings?” His confusion clear as he studies smudges on cream flimsy.

“Both,” he turns to look at you, head cocked, and you tell him of the flora that developed sentience you’d met on a planet years ago.

And so it goes on like this, the man questioning your questions, attention never straying from the physical manifestation of your brain. The only reason you hadn’t accosted him and taken it back by force was because your handwriting really is atrocious, and the more personal, sensitive things are written with no context and make very little sense if one does not know what they are looking at.

The Mandalorian’s story about a planet full of ghosts that he had tracked a bounty too was cut short by a blaring alarm. Swiveling to face forward, he radios in for a hanger bay. Looking out the window you see something approaching fast, you feel incredulous as the realization strikes.

“Are we… did you take me to a starport?” 

“Yes,” was the clipped response, he doesn’t even turn to look at you as he repeats the hanger bay number back into the comm.

“Why?”

“You’re going to learn how to get a ride.”

The Mandalorian leads you off the ship without any more information than that simple, curt explanation. Scrambling after him, the ramp lowers to reveal a circus of stimuli that has your brain in overdrive. It’s unsightly and smells of so many different things, it melds into one irritating odor you can’t quite place.

It takes you some time to adjust. The few starports you’d visited in the past were smaller, Limited Services Class at highest rank. But this, this was a Steller Class starport and it was kriffing overwhelming. There were hundreds of people shifting and gliding between ships and scrap yards, mechanics hollering prices out stall windows, and more food than you knew what to do with thrown to paying customers around every bend. A childish part of you feels the need to grab onto the end of the Mandalorian’s cloak to ensure you don’t lose him in the crowd.

You’re nervous. It’s not an uncommon feeling, but normally it is caused by your express decision to be that way. By your own choice, not the flippancy of a taxi driver.

Weaving through the crowd is much easier with a Mandalorian leading the way. The crowd parts for him, a bullet ripping right down the middle of the main drag. Peaking around his shoulder, you see the approaching trade ships and feel your heart rate kick up again.

“Uh… I–” your face smacks into the back of him, the sudden stop unexpected.

“Lincher is an agricultural trade company, fairly clean.” Turning to look at you over his shoulder you wonder what he sees playing across your face. “You ask for standard passage, lay a price down, low ball it. He’ll counter with something unreasonable. Meet in the middle.”

“See when you say it like that, it makes sense but I uh–” he turns o face you fully and you find yourself shrinking back, hands clenching and unclenching at your sides. People flow around your stopped forms, he’s a beskar bolder of in the middle of a people river.

“You what?”

“I don’t know what standard passage is,” you bite your lip, eyes bouncing around. A particularly bright species shuffles past and your eyes follow the beautiful coral color until they disappear from view.

“If it’s on their route and a single day ride, offer half what they counter with,” he says, a sigh escaping when you bite your lip and shrink further in on yourself.

“How do you know he won’t counter with something reasonable?” A distorted snort is the only response he gives. “Okay fine, counter with half,” you nod, trying to psych yourself up, loosening your shoulders, rolling them back.

“Their next stop is Ocera, six-hour hyper jump. Book passage, one way. Low ball, counter with half,” and then the man has the _gall_ to snake an arm around your waist and shove you forward. You stumble, righting yourself in the few steps it takes to reach someone that looks like they work on the ship.

“I…” the crewman pauses his work to look up at you. He’s humanoid enough, aside from the yellow skin and tentacles sprouting from his head.

“Gahh?”

“Looking for passage to O–” you wrinkle your forehead in concentration, “Ocera. One way. I’ll give you 20 credits.” Kriff, you didn’t ask what the starting price should be. Kriff, you hate this.

You probably look like a fucking idiot right now. Sages are not supposed to look like fools. They should never not know something, but here you were, bring shame upon your house. With all the self-restraint you have in the entirety of your being, you don’t look back at the beskar helmet staring a hole through you.

“Kah, 80.” You snap back to the present at the counter and to your sheer _horror_ you stumble over the response.

“40,” you stutter. Eyes wide, you watch as they contemplate the response before making some sort of hissing sound.

“Fine.”

A smile splits your face, hands flying to clutch at the pendent hanging on a chain around your neck. Flushed with excitement you give into the impulse and look over your shoulder. When you take in his stance, the laugh comes unbidden. He’s standing there, hands on hips, nodding in apparent approval.

“We leave in 30 minutes,” the slightly accented voice has you whipping back around, and your eyes go wide for a different reason. Shit. What’re you supposed to say, _‘never mind, I was just checking to see what this process was like, bye?’_ because that would go over marvelously.

“I – uh, well the thing is –”

“She’s got a ride,” yelping in public, the habit needs to stop. The hand that lands on your back leads you away as the yellow crewman mumbles under its breath. Poor guy thought he’d get some side money.

“I countered at half!” You’re one second away from jumping up and down like a child. “He mumbled but took it. I started at 20, was that too little? I don’t know what is lowball and what is like, buried six feet under. Anyway, he countered at 80, which really did seem like too much, so I came back – where are we going?”

Coming up for air, your excited ramble putters out as you realize the human metal-man has led you further into the starport, the opposite direction of the Razor Crest. You’ve slowed in front of another trader ship, bigger, with a couple dozen crew wandering around the outside and inside the hull. Craning your neck and squinting, you make a confused, and maybe a little distressed, sound in the back of your throat.

“Again.”

He makes you acquire passage on eight ships, pointing out names to avoid as he walks you around the whole fucking starport. The first few are rocky, to say the least, but you start to feel the anxiety turn to annoyance as he pushes you towards random crewmen over, and over, and over again. Surely he had something better to do than embarrass you all day. Shine his beskar perhaps? Catch a bounty? Shoot himself in the face?

Your stomach rumbles as you walk away from the twelfth trader of the day. Looking over at your metal companion, hunger wins out over the idea of pushing through and not letting on that you’re fucking starving. Spotting a very tasty looking cured meat and noodle bar, you make him break for lunch.

“I’ll take one for here and one to go,” you smile at the woman across the counter. She takes your money without even looking up.

“You like noodles that much?” As the attendant returns your change, you frown while doing calculations in your head. When you give her a look she rolls her eyes and hands over the rest. Thanking her curtly, you walk towards the pickup side.

“I love noodles,” you finally answer, “but the to-go is for you.” When you turn to continue, you find he’s shuffled closer, your shoulder brushing just under his. The man was intimidating as hell but it’s only just now you notice you almost match him in height. When he doesn’t respond, you tack onto the proclamation, because of course you do.

“It’s not like you can pop that off and eat with me. I chose these noodles because they’re good warm or cold,” he makes some weird sound in the back of his throat and you pause. When he says nothing, you go on.

“Make sure you grab packet of the brown sauce, it really makes it,” a bowl hits the dented metal top, a bag thrown next to it, contents sloshing around. “The red chilis are hot as hell, so grab some of those if you’re into the spicy food thing.”

In a great show of silent intimidation, he finds you a table, staring some poor couple out of it by sheer force of will, to sit and eat your noodles. Grabbing the traditional utensils of a spoon and chop sticks, you sit down and proceed to shake out the brown packet. You’re battling to open it when you realize he hasn’t actually sat down across from you.

“You can still sit,” frowning deeply at the little plastic packet, you put your teeth to it. Fucker opens in seconds. “Looming there is weird.”

“Looming?” He asks but moves to sit so you take it.

“Looming? No, lurking. Hovering?” Absentmindedly stirring the conquered sauce in, you debate the vernacular that can accurately communicate a man of metal standing still as stone and intimidating as fuck. 

“You didn’t have to buy me noodles,” his voice seems relaxed, but posture screams on-alert.

“You didn’t have to make me embarrass myself twelve times today,” you say good naturedly before taking a massive bite of noodles.

“I can’t be at your beck and call all the time.”

“No,” you mumble around the bite, “but it would be nice.”

Finishing lunch is a quiet affair, you see how he swivels to cover the area throughout your meal. It doesn’t occur to you until you’ve shoved three packets of brown sauce and a small bag of chilis into his hands that he may be just as uncomfortable as you are in large crowds. Sitting down, back to countless people walking past and watching hundreds more over your shoulder. It makes something warm bloom in your chest because he brought you anyway.

That warmth evaporates when he puts you back to the task of talking to strangers and bargaining with slimy little bastards. Almost two hours go by and you vaguely regret buying him noodles.

“Last one,” he says, and you groan.

“I’ve finagled passage on twenty-seven vessels today!”

“And you’ll finagle passage on one more.” You’re amused, you got him to say ‘finagle.’

“Fine, I’ve grown an impressive pair today.” The sigh he lets out follows after you as you approach a rotund man leaning against a few crates. He’s one of the more intimidating you’ve approached today, a scar running from eye to chin.

“And what can I do for you?” His voice has a quality that makes you pause, but you forge ahead anyway. It’s your last deal of the day, freedom within your grasp.

“Passage, one way. Wherever your next stop is,” you say curtly. You’ve got this down pat now.

“Aw, well I’m headed back to mine next luv, what a coincidence.” He stands and your eyes stay on his moving up, up and _fuck_ , up. He’s at least half a foot taller than you and twice as wide.

“Can you be a bit more specific on the where?” Heartbeat kicking up, a fight or flight response teetering just beyond reach.

“Now, now, let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” he’s says, slinking closer. “Let’s talk price.”

“I’d say 30 credits, with so little information to go off of,” you sass, confused when he leans into your personal space.

“Mm, I’m sure you can offer something better than credits, luv.” Is he… is he coming on to you? The wrinkle in your brow deepens. That… that doesn’t usually happen. Certainly not. He grabs your arm in one hand, the other snaking around your waist and you jump. Whelp, apparently he certainly _is._

Men don’t usually look twice at someone like you with your plain, baggy clothes, and a face free of alterations or cosmetics. Maybe one could say, in certain lights, that you weren’t half bad, but not in the glaring open air of the spaceport. Certainly not when you haven’t showered in three days. His hand migrates lower to the swell of your ass and it’s like a shock to the system.

“Oi!” you yell, hands pushing at his chest. “How bout you get your hands off me?”

“We’re negotiatin’ no need to get squirmy now.”

“You son of a–”

“Negotiations are over.” The modulated voice comes from just behind you, but you’re too focused on the tightening of his hand on your arm. It will bruise and you’re more than a little pissed about it.

“Run along Mando, this is between me and the tart here,” he jeers, and you feel an irrational spike of offense.

“Excuse me–”

“You either get your hands off her or you lose them.” The menace in his words has you swiveling a look his way, brows raised in surprise. The man’s tightening grip stirs something deep in your gut. Whipping back around, something dark rears up.

“Go find your own desperate little–” Your knee connecting between his legs cuts the next insult off. You remove his hand from your ass and with more force than most would think you capable, you twist at the wrist until a satisfying snap echoes in the air. He cries out, other hand losing its grip as his knees hit the ground.

“Touch me again and I’ll break more than your fucking wrist,” the sneer that rips out of you isn’t as surprising as it used to be. Maybe you can claim it’s a byproduct of a woman traveling alone this long, but that would be a lie. It was in you far before setting off to bum around the galaxy, since you were young, since before you could even remember.

“You’ll regret that you bi–” it’s not your knee that cuts him off this time, it’s the Mandalorian fist. You release your hold as he falls, out cold. Focus on the man now unconscious before you, a gentle touch on your arm makes you tense.

“You alright?” he asks, voice almost gentle, it throws you for a moment.

“Yeah, yeah fine,” your smile is probably more grim than sunny, but the adrenaline has you flush with unspent energy. “Call it a day?” You meant it to be a jaunty tone, a joke, but you can’t quite manage it. Instead it comes out hard, cold in that way it gets when needed.

He nods silently, stepping back to let you walk in front of him, pausing for just a moment to look at the man prostrate on the ground. Finally you nod and start towards the Razor Crest, the ship feeling like it’s a million miles from here. You stride forward all of two steps before stuttering to a stop.

“What’s wrong?” His concern is… touching, literally touching and you kind of hate yourself for thinking it.

“Grab your noodles,” you say tersely, embarrassed by the affection blooming in your chest _._ He does just that, hands grabbing up the little package he had tossed haphazardly on a work bench nearby. “Chilies too,” you remind him, not even looking his way. You don’t hear a sigh, but you imagine one, nonetheless.

The market looks different now. Instead of a swirl of color and intrigue, its possible danger, threats, retaliation could come from anywhere. It scares you sometimes, how quickly you can pivot. Survival instincts are a hell of a thing.

It only takes you a few minutes to become frustrated by the amount of people-dodging you have to do. After the fifth person slams against your shoulder, you give up the ghost.

“Go ahead of me,” you say, slowing until you’re shoulder to shoulder with the Mandalorian. “You’re like a snowplow in this crowd.” He huffs, taking a moment to walk side by side with you. Before he takes the lead, he mumbles.

“After that stunt, I’m surprised you’re not.” Biting your lip at his words, you stick close, following him in silence.

The longer you walk, the laxer your shoulders go. Coming down from any confrontation usually takes you an hour or more, but this time you’re relaxing in minutes. You tear your eyes away from scanning the crowd for threats and instead stare hard into pure beskar. It was nice, having someone with you, having someone at your back.

You handled it fine, and had the Mandalorian not been there, the man would have been on the ground regardless. One didn’t survive this long alone without a little know how and a lot of anger. Still, you couldn’t deny having someone, a friggin legendary warrior that parted crowds like a hot knife through butter, at your back stirred a feeling in your gut. _‘You either get your hands off her or you lose them’_ fuck, he made you feel invincible.

“So… still only twenty-seven finagled, do I pass?” you ask walking up the ramp of his ship.

“You pass,” he grunts back, heading straight to the ladder. A breath you didn’t realize you were holding comes rushing out of you once you’re seating in the co-pilots chair. Boneless, that’s how you feel sinking into the hard seat as he goes through preflight checks.

“Did you pay the–”

“Yes.”

“Alright, alright,” you lift both hands in surrender, “I just wanted to check.”

It’s not until you’ve broken through the atmosphere that he says something. You wonder idly if he has great self-restraint not to have asked before now or if he is so accustomed to silence he didn’t think to ask until now.

“You did well,” he starts curtly, “it was a well-executed wrist break.”

If you didn’t know him better you’d think he was stumbling over the words. As a warrior, raised in a warrior culture, these types of observations and compliments seems to come most easily for him. The memory of his complimenting the sword of Ortis comes to mind.

In an odd sort of role reversal you find nothing comes to mind in response.

When the ship makes the jump into hyperspace, the pilot’s chair swivels in place. The Mandalorian is sitting, there, arm extended. A heart stopping moment, you realize its your journal, whose abnormal location was entirely forgotten about. You could’ve left it on his ship. The thought sends streaks of panic through you.

“Thank you,” you mutter out, taking hold of it with reverence.

“It’s an odd book.”

“I’m an odd woman,” you counter, fingers scrubbing over the cracked leather cover.

“Yes,” he finally says a moment later, “I suppose you are.”

“And thank you, for having my back with the last trader.” You look up and see that his shoulders have tensed, drawing closer to the edge of his helmet.

“He was a spice trader,” he grounds out, one hand squeezing his armrest. “I should have caught it before you approached.”

“Turned out fine. I appreciate the assist.”

“Didn’t seem to need it.” You sidestep the unasked question in the innocuous statement.

“No. I usually don’t,” the smile you give him might be a touch feral. “I appreciate it nonetheless.”

The ship utters a little beep, indication that you’ll be dropping out of hyperspace soon. This was why you hesitated to call him, the next planet you were hopping to was just a hyperjump away, around the block you could say.

Smiling gamely, you retrieve the bag from beside the co-pilot’s chair where you’d stashed it. Undoing the drawstring, you swap the little journal for, surprisingly, a bag of credits.

“Thought you might appreciate standard currency, for once,” you tack onto the end, amusement coursing through you as he tilts his head. “Should cover the original pick up location, not sure what you’re getting on fuels these days, so rerouting to the spaceport may not be covered.”

“You bought me noodles,” he counters without missing a beat and it startles a laugh from you.

“I suppose I did,” you say, smile widening even more. Before you say something stupid, like how endearing it is that he’s bantering back, you duck your head and pretend to look busy rooting around the bag.

The ship lands with a soft jolt, the sight of a wide stretching ocean and rocky beaches laid out before you both out the glass shielding. One thing you love about the Sage gig was how often it brough you to beautiful places. If your nomadic way of life had anything going for it, it was walking around worlds like this one.

By the time you make it to the bottom of the ramp, you feel a sort of ache in the pit of your stomach that hasn’t reared its head in ages. You were getting attached to this Mandalorian. For all his gruff and silence, the man was weirdly… warm? It didn’t make much sense, but you could feel it, just like you could feel the pull of a Chosen. 

“I–” bag slung over your shoulder, the sudden urge to hug him comes over you. Had it been anyone else, you just might have done it. Instead you settle on a warrior’s arm grasp, presenting your forearm and open palm. “Thank you, for everything today.”

He looks down at the proffered arm and lowers his head just a bit so that your face to helmet. His hand closes over the skin of your arm tightly, visor pointed directly at you and it feels like a thing. What kind of thing, you’re not entirely sure, but it certainly feels like something has shifted today.

“Thank you for the noodles,” he sounds sincere and you can’t help the eyeroll, he’s damn fixated. Man must be starving. “And the chance to watch you fell a man twice your size,” he adds, arm still clasped onto your own. The cackle you release is a wicked.

“It’s one of life’s keenest pleasures,” you respond honestly.

The moment he breaks the embrace you feel a sharp sense of loss. Wracking your brain for some sort of witty quip to leave him with, nothing surfaces.

Throwing one last smile, this one fond, you dip your head purposefully in his direction. He dips his in response. You turn on your heel, eyes set towards the shoreline settlement just over the next ridge, huts peaking up from the seagrass.

You might know how to catch a ride from traders, to some extent, but the Mandalorian taxi service is still your first call.

**Author's Note:**

> Bro. I just let the keys take me. I promise we're getting to series timeline. Like only three more one-shots away. Promise. Things will start to get a little darker after this. BE NOT AFRAID THE SASS WILL CONTINUE. I'm really loving this format, I don't normally do one-shot series like this, feels like less pressure tbh. Longest one yet. 
> 
> I will panhandle for comments/feedback.


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